We show that the linearization of all exact solutions of classical chiral gravity around the AdS3 vacuum have positive energy. Nonchiral and negative-energy solutions of the linearized equations are infrared divergent at second order, and so are removed from the spectrum. In other words, chirality is confined and the equations of motion have linearization instabilities. We prove that the only stationary, axially symmetric solutions of chiral gravity are BTZ black holes, which have positive energy. It is further shown that classical log gravity—the theory with logarithmically relaxed boundary conditions—has finite asymptotic symmetry generators but is not chiral and hence may be dual at the quantum level to a logarithmic conformal field theories (CFT). Moreover we show that log gravity contains chiral gravity within it as a decoupled charge superselection sector. We formally evaluate the Euclidean sum over geometries of chiral gravity and show that it gives precisely the holomorphic extremal CFT partition function. The modular invariance and integrality of the expansion coefficients of this partition function are consistent with the existence of an exact quantum theory of chiral gravity. We argue that the problem of quantizing chiral gravity is the holographic dual of the problem of constructing an extremal CFT, while quantizing log gravity is dual to the problem of constructing a logarithmic extremal CFT.

For spacetimes that are not asymptotic to anti-de Sitter Space (non AAdS), we adapt the Lewkowycz-Maldacena procedure to find the holographic entanglement entropy. The key observation, which to our knowledge is not very well appreciated, is that asymptotic boundary conditions play an essential role on extending the replica trick to the bulk. For non AAdS, we expect the following three main modifications: (1) the expansion near the special surface has to be compatible with the asymptotic expansion; (2) periodic conditions are imposed to coordinates on the phase space with diagonalized symplectic structure, not to all fields appearing in the action; (3) evaluating the entanglement functional using the boundary term method amounts to evaluating the presymplectic structure at the special surface, where some additional exact form may contribute. An explicit calculation is carried out for three-dimensional warped anti-de Sitter spacetime (WAdS3) in a consistent truncation of string theory, the so-called S-dual dipole theory. It turns out that the generalized gravitational entropy in WAdS3 is captured by the least action of a charged particle in WAdS3 space, or equivalently, by the geodesic length in an auxiliary AdS3. Consequently, the bulk calculation agrees with the CFT results, providing another piece of evidence for the WAdS3/CFT2 correspondence.

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This monograph introduces the basic concepts of the theory of causal fermion systems, a recent approach to the description of fundamental physics. The theory yields quantum mechanics, general relativity and quantum field theory as limiting cases and is therefore a candidate for a unified physical theory. From the mathematical perspective, causal fermion systems provide a general framework for describing and analyzing non-smooth geometries and ``quantum geometries.'' The dynamics is described by a novel variational principle, called the causal action principle. In addition to the basics, the book provides all the necessary mathematical background and explains how the causal action principle gives rise to the interactions of the standard model plus gravity on the level of second-quantized fermionic fields coupled to classical bosonic fields. The focus is on getting a mathematically sound connection between causal fermion systems and physical systems in Minkowski space. The book is intended for graduate students entering the field, and is furthermore a valuable reference work for researchers in quantum field theory and quantum gravity.

We develop mathematical models describing the evolution of stochastic age-structured populations. After reviewing existing approaches, we formulate a complete kinetic framework for age-structured interacting populations undergoing birth, death and fission processes in spatially dependent environments. We define the full probability density for the population-size age chart and find results under specific conditions. Connections with more classical models are also explicitly derived. In particular, we show that factorial moments for non-interacting processes are described by a natural generalization of the McKendrick-von Foerster equation, which describes mean-field deterministic behavior. Our approach utilizes mixed-type, multidimensional probability distributions similar to those employed in the study of gas kinetics and with terms that satisfy BBGKY-like equation hierarchies.